He has long been a fan of world-renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando, whom he once described as “simply awesome,” and now Bono is putting his money where his mouth is and has commissioned Ando to design his very own art gallery.

The planned modern art gallery — a gift to the people of Dublin — will be built from concrete, steel and glass, but it’s still at the conceptual stage.

Not even the location has been decided yet but all bets are on
docklands, where U2 have lent their name to a planned towerblock.

The two men met for the first time on Osaka in Japan in 2006. It was, quite obviously, love at first sight.

Bono was very impressed by the Japanese architect’s commitment to fighting climate change and credits him with helping to get Africa and poverty on the agenda of next July’s G8 summit in Tokyo, while Ando, speaking through an interpreter, said Bono deserves the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “the wonderful things he has been doing
for the planet and AIDS.”

“To find your own voice is the hardest thing. Tadao Ando didn’t just find a voice, he found a language,” says Bono. “Awe is a word to describe Ando’s work — he’s simply awesome.”

Bono has a particular love for Ando’s famous Church of Light in Osaka which he visited last year with friends Gavin Friday, Guggi and Paddy McKillen, who part owns the Clarence Hotel with the boys from the band.

Tadao Ando started off life as a boxer and truck driver and began studying architecture by going to see landmark buildings across the world.

He later picked up a book about Le Cor-busier in a second-hand bookstore. He was hooked and almost wore the pages of it out copying and recopying the plans.

Around this time he visited architectural gems around the world and returned to Osaka at the age of 28 to open his own studio, Tadao Ando Architect and Associates.

In 1995, Ando won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize medallion& an award the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in architecture.

News Source: Daily Mail